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Maya Forstater

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Bio

Maya Forstater is a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development and a researcher and advisor on business and sustainable development. Her work focuses on the intersection of public policy, business strategy and sustainability including questions around tax and development, financing for low carbon investment and multi-sector partnerships and standard setting.

From 2014-2016 she was Senior Researcher for the UNEP Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System. She has also worked with the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (for the Open Government Partnership), the South African Renewables Initiative, the Global Green Growth Initiative, AccountAbility and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. She started her career at the New Economics Foundation, and was involved in setting up the Ethical Trading Initiative. She has published reports and articles on issues including the scale of international tax avoidance and evasion, corporate responsibility by Chinese businesses in Africa, the design of pay-for-performance climate finance mechanisms and the governance and effectiveness of multistakeholder partnerships.

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More From Maya Forstater

You might remember the UNCTAD report on trade misinvoicing published last year which alleged that the majority of gold exports leave South Africa unreported. If not, you will more than likely have heard the billion dollar estimates of illicit financial flows as a source of resources for financing the SDGs. It is increasingly clear that these calculations, based on gaps and mismatches in trade are not reliable.

It is often stated that developing countries are “haemorrhaging billions of dollars” of tax revenues through companies abusing transfer pricing, in particular by mispricing commodities.There is no doubt that companies can take advantage of weak regulations and enforcement, but new studies based on microdata from revenue authorities suggest the scale of revenues that might be recovered is unlikely to match up to heightened popular expectations.

In May, President Magufuli of Tanzania appointed two special committees to investigate the contents of 277 containers stuck at Dar-es-Salaam. The committees' belief that they have uncovered a case of massive misinvoicing (i.e., misrepresentation of the value or quantity of exports) does not seem plausible for five reasons. For starters, the scale of mineral smuggling required for it to be true is implausible.

Misunderstandings about the scale of multinational tax avoidance are common. The origin story for an erroneous $1 trillion figure is a case of bad lip reading, but its proliferation reflects the belief that there are absolutely huge sums of money for development at stake from cracking down on multinational tax avoidance. The figure itself may be ridiculous but these myths are serious—they undermine both trust in revenue authorities and businesses, overheat disputes, and make it harder to judge practical progress on improving tax systems and compliance.

CGD Europe recently published a (UK) election manifesto on development with proposals across 19 areas. One area that raised comments and feedback was the proposals on tax, which left out country-by-country reporting. I can’t speak for others who contributed ideas to the manifesto, but the reason I did not suggest public CBCR is this: I’m not convinced by it.

Financial transparency has been promoted as a key solution to improving governance and accountability. Some approaches are targeted such as open contracting (focused on public procurement), and regulations requiring extractive industry companies to ‘publish what they pay.’ Other proposals cast a much broader net such as calls for company owners to be listed on registers of beneficial ownership and mandatory publication of ‘country-by-country’ reports by all multinational corporations.

A new Criminal Finances Bill is making its way through the UK House of Commons which aims to make it harder for criminals and kleptocrats to use the UK financial system to launder ill-gotten gains, while minimising the burden on legitimate businesses and individuals. The bill gives expanded powers to law enforcement agencies and makes banks and other businesses liable for prosecution if they fail to prevent facilitation of tax evasion. It also introduces ‘Unexplained Wealth Orders’ (UWOs). These would allow the authorities to demand explanations about any assets that appear suspicious. These measures should have both domestic and international benefits in tackling illicit financial flows.

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It is often stated that developing countries are “haemorrhaging billions of dollars” of tax revenues through companies abusing transfer pricing, in particular by mispricing commodities.There is no doubt that companies can take advantage of weak regulations and enforcement, but new studies based on microdata from revenue authorities suggest the scale of revenues that might be recovered is unlikely to match up to heightened popular expectations.

A comment piece published in the Guardian earlier this week argued that for every $1 of aid that developing countries receive, they lose $24 in net outflows. The 1 to 24 figure is shocking and morally compelling. But it isn’t true.

Discussion on tax and development can be incoherent, both within and between different sectors. A symptom of this is the tendency for inflated expectations about the scale of revenues at stake in relation to multinational corporations and misunderstandings and contested definitions on the issue of illicit financial flows.

Financial transparency has been promoted as a key solution to improving governance and accountability. Some approaches are targeted such as open contracting (focused on public procurement), and regulations requiring extractive industry companies to ‘publish what they pay.’ Other proposals cast a much broader net such as calls for company owners to be listed on registers of beneficial ownership and mandatory publication of ‘country-by-country’ reports by all multinational corporations.

Earlier this year, The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (“SOMO”; a Dutch NGO) issued a report about an international mining company they said had avoided paying $232 million USD in taxes in Mongolia. The Oyu Tolgoi mine is considered a big deal in Mongolia and has been subject to lengthy negotiations on how to split the risks, costs, and profits of the project between the company and the government. While this question is of primary interest to the people of Mongolia, I think that delving into the detail of individual cases like this is also important for clarifying the broader debates and understanding of tax issues.

CGD Europe recently published a (UK) election manifesto on development with proposals across 19 areas. One area that raised comments and feedback was the proposals on tax, which left out country-by-country reporting. I can’t speak for others who contributed ideas to the manifesto, but the reason I did not suggest public CBCR is this: I’m not convinced by it.